The present invention relates in general to vehicle usage. More specifically, the present invention relates to methods, systems and computer program products for gathering, storing, analyzing and reporting data on how a vehicle has been driven.
On-board diagnostics (OBD) is a computer-based system that was originally designed to reduce emissions by monitoring the performance of major engine components of an automobile. A basic OBD system includes an electronic control unit (ECU), which uses input from various sensors (e.g., oxygen sensors) to control various vehicle actuators (e.g., fuel injectors) in order to reach the desired performance. A contemporary automobile can support hundreds of sensors that sense hundreds of parameters, which can be accessed via a diagnostic link connector (DLC) using a device called a scan tool. Accordingly, automobiles using OBD systems and sensors have the capability to generate a considerable amount of sensed data about how a vehicle has been operated and driven, although such data is not currently being consistently logged and stored.